and holy things and also counterfeit affections of a love for them in
tone and manner, and yet at heart do not believe and love them. Most of
these are hypocrites and Pharisees who are deprived after death of all
truth and good and thereupon are sent into outer darkness. Those who have
confirmed themselves by this kind of profanation against the Divine and
against the Word and thus against the spiritual things of the Word, sit
in outer darkness dumb, unable to speak, wanting to babble pious and holy
things as they did in the world, but unable to do so. For in the
spiritual world everyone is compelled to speak as he thinks. A hypocrite,
however, wants to speak otherwise than he thinks, but there is impediment
in the tongue as a result of which he can only mumble. Hypocrisies are
lighter or more grave in the measure of the confirmation against God and
of the outward rationalizing in favor of God.
[5] A fifth kind of profanation is committed by those who ascribe to
themselves what is divine. These are meant by Lucifer in Isaiah 14; and
by Lucifer Babylon is meant, as is plain from verses 4 and 24 of that
chapter, where the fate, too, of such profaners is described. The same
profaners are also meant and described in the Apocalypse (chapter 17)
under the harlot seated on the scarlet beast. Babylon and Chaldea are
mentioned at many places in the Word; by Babylon profanation of good is
meant and by Chaldea profanation of truth; the one and the other
committed by those who ascribe to themselves what is divine.
[6] A sixth kind of profanation is committed by those who acknowledge the
Word but deny the divine of the Lord. In the world they are called
Socinians and some Arians. The lot of both is that they invoke the Father
and not the Lord and keep praying the Father, some of them for the sake
of the Son, that they may be admitted to heaven, but in vain, until they
lose hope of salvation. They are then sent down to hell among deniers of
God. They are meant by those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit and who will
not be forgiven in this world or that to come (Mt 12:32). For God is one
in person and essence, in Him is the Trinity, and this God is the Lord.
Since the Lord is heaven also and thus those in heaven are in the Lord,
those who deny the divine of the Lord cannot be admitted to heaven and be
in the Lord. It was shown above that the Lord is heaven and that those in
heaven are therefore in Him.
[7] The seventh kind of profanation is committed by those who first
acknowledge and live by divine truths and then recede from them and deny
them. This is the worst kind of profanation because holy things are mixed
by them with profane to the point where they cannot be separated. Yet
they must be separated for one to be either in heaven or in hell, and as
this cannot be accomplished with them, all that is human, either of the
understanding or of the will, is rooted out, and they become, as we said,
no longer human beings. Almost the same occurs with those who acknowledge
the divine things of the Word and of the church at heart but immerse them
entirely in their proprium, which is a love of ruling over all things, of
which much has been said before. After death, when they become spirits,
they do not want to be led by the Lord but by themselves. When loose rein
is given their love, they want to rule not only over heaven but over the
Lord, too; and as they cannot do this, they deny the Lord and become
devils. It should be known that the life's love, which is one's reigning
love, remains with everyone after death and cannot be taken away.
[8] Profaners of this class are meant by the lukewarm, of whom it is
written in the Apocalypse:
I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot; would that you were
cold or hot; but because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I
will spue you out of my mouth (3:14, 15, 16).
This manner of profanation is also described by the Lord in Matthew:
When the unclean spirit goes out from a man, he walks through dry places,
seeking rest but finds none. Then he says, I will return to the house
whence I came out. When he returns and finds it empty, swept and
garnished for him, he goes and gathers to him seven other spirits worse
than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of the
man is worse than the first (12:43-45).
The conversion of the man is described by the unclean spirit's going out
of him; his reverting to his former evils when things good and true have
been cast out, is described by the return of the unclean spirit with
seven worse than himself into the house garnished for him; and the
profanation of the holy by what is profane is described by the last state
of that man being worse than the first. The same is meant by this passage
in John,
Jesus said to the man healed in the pool of Bethesda: Sin no more, lest
something worse befall you (5:14).
[9] That the Lord provides that man shall not acknowledge truths inwardly
and afterwards leave them and become profane, is meant by these words:
He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they should not
see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and be converted,
and I should heal them (Jn 12:40).
"Lest they should be converted, and I should heal them" signifies lest
they should acknowledge truths and then depart from them and thus become
profane. For the same reason the Lord spoke in parables, as He Himself
says (Mt 13:13). The Jews were forbidden to eat fat and blood (Lev 3:17,
7:13, 25 ); this signifies that they were not to profane holy things, for
"fat" signifies divine good and "blood" divine truth. In Matthew the Lord
teaches that once converted a man must continue in good and truth to the
close of life:
Jesus said: Whosoever perseveres to the end, shall be saved (10:20;
similarly Mk 13:13).
232. (iv) _The Lord therefore does not admit man interiorly into truths
of wisdom and at the same time into goods of love except as man can be
kept in them to the close of life._ To demonstrate this we must proceed
by steps for two reasons; one, because it concerns human salvation, and
the other, because a knowledge of the laws of permission (to be
considered in the next chapter) depends on a knowledge of this law. It
concerns human salvation, because, as has just been said, one who first
acknowledges what is divine in Word and church and subsequently departs
from them profanes what is holy most grievously. In order, then, that
this arcanum of divine providence may be revealed so that the rational
man can see it in his own light, it is to be unfolded as follows:
1. Evil and good cannot exist together in man's interior being,
consequently neither can the falsity of evil and the truth of good.
2. Good and the truth of good can be introduced into man's interior being
only so far as evil and the falsity of evil there have been removed.
3. If good with its truth were introduced there before or further than
evil with its falsity is removed, man would depart from the good and go
back to his evil.
4. When man is in evil many truths may be introduced into his
understanding and kept in memory, and yet not be profaned.
5. But the Lord in His divine providence takes the greatest care that
they are not received from the understanding by the will sooner or more
largely than man as of himself removes evil in the external man.
6. Should it welcome them sooner or in larger measure, the will would
adulterate good and the understanding would falsify truth by mingling
them with evils and falsities.
7. The Lord therefore admits man inwardly into truths of wisdom and goods
of love only so far as man can be kept in them to the close of life.
233. In order, then, that this arcanum of divine providence may be
disclosed so that the rational man will see it in his light, the points
made will be explained one by one. 1. _Evil and good cannot exist
together in man's interior being, consequently neither can the falsity of
evil and the truth of good._ By man's interiors the internal of his
thought is meant. Of this he knows nothing until he comes into the
spiritual world and its light, which happens on death. In the natural
world it can be known only by the enjoyment of his love in the external
of his thought, and from evils themselves as he examines them in himself.
For the internal of thought in man is so closely connected with the
external of thought that they cannot be separated (of this more may be
seen above). We say "good and truth of good," and "evil and falsity of
evil" because good cannot exist apart from its truth nor evil apart from
its falsity. They are bedfellows or partners, for the life of good is
from its truth and the life of truth is from its good; the same is to be
said of evil and its falsity.
[2] The rational man can see without explanation that evil with its
falsity and good with its truth cannot exist in man's interiors at the
same time. For evil is the opposite of good and good the opposite of
evil; two opposites cannot coexist. Implanted in all evil, moreover, is a
hatred for good, and implanted in all good the love of protecting itself
against evil and removing it from itself. Consequently one cannot be
where the other is. If they were together conflict and combat would start
and destruction ensue, as the Lord teaches also in these words:
Every kingdom divided against itself is desolated, and every city or
house divided against itself does not stand . . . Whoever is not with me
is against me, and whoever does not gather with me disperses (Mt 25:30);
and in another place,
No one can serve two masters at the same time: for either he will hate
the one and love the other . . . (Mt 6:24).
Two opposites are impossible in one substance or form without its being
torn apart and destroyed. If one should advance and approach the other,
they would keep apart like two enemies, one retiring to his camp or fort,
and the other posting himself outside. This happens with evil and good in
a hypocrite; he harbors both, but the evil is inside and the good outside
and so the two are separate and not mingled. It is plain then that evil
with its falsity and good with its truth cannot coexist.
[3] 2. _Good and the truth of good can be introduced into man's interiors
only so far as evil and the falsity of evil there have been removed._
This is a necessary consequence from what has preceded, for as evil and
good cannot exist together, good cannot be introduced before evil has
been removed. We say man's "interiors" and mean by these the internal of
thought; and in these, now being considered, either the Lord or the devil
must be present. The Lord is there after reformation and the devil before
reformation. So far as man suffers himself to be reformed, therefore, the
devil is cast out, but so far as he does not suffer himself to be
reformed the devil remains. Anyone can see that the Lord cannot enter as
long as the devil is there, and he is there as long as man keeps the door
closed where man acts together with the Lord. The Lord teaches in the
Apocalypse that He enters when that door is opened by man's mediation:
I stand at the door, and knock; if anyone hears my voice, and opens the
door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me (3:20).
The door is opened by man's removing evil, fleeing and turning away from
it as infernal and diabolical. Whether one says "evil" or "the devil," it
is one and the same, in turn whether one says "good" or "the Lord," for
within all good is the Lord and within all evil is the devil. From these
considerations the truth of this proposition is plain.
[4] 3. _If good with its truth were introduced before or further than evil
with its falsity is removed, man would depart from the good and go back
to his evil._ This is because evil would be the stronger, and what is
stronger conquers, eventually if not then. As long as evil is stronger,
good cannot be introduced into the inner chambers but only into the entry
hall; for evil and good, as we said, cannot exist together, and what is
in the entry hall is removed by its enemy in the chamber. Thus good is
receded from and evil is returned to, which is the worst kind of
profanation.
[5] Furthermore, it is the enjoyment of man's life to love himself and
the world above all else. This enjoyment cannot be removed in a moment,
but only gradually. In the measure in which it remains in man, evil is
stronger in him and can be removed only as self-love becomes a love of
uses, or as the love of ruling is not for its own sake but for the sake
of uses. Uses then make the head, and self-love or the love of ruling is
at first the body under the head and finally the feet, on which to walk.
Who does not see that good should be the head, and that when it is, the
Lord is there? Good and use are one. Who does not see that when evil is
the head, the devil is there? As civil and moral good and, in its
external form, spiritual good, too, are still to be received, who does
not see that these then constitute the feet and the soles of the feet,
and are trodden on?
[6] Inasmuch, then, as man's state of life is to be inverted so that what
is uppermost may be lowermost, and the inversion cannot be instantaneous,
for the chief enjoyment of his life, coming of self-love and the love of
ruling, can be diminished and turned into a love of uses only gradually,
the Lord cannot introduce good sooner or further than this evil is
removed; done earlier or further, man would recede from good and return
to his evil.
[7] 4. _When man is in evil many truths may be introduced into his
understanding and kept in memory, and still not be profaned._ This is
because the understanding does not flow into the will, but the will into
the understanding. As the understanding does not flow into the will, many
truths can be received by the understanding and held in memory and still
not be mingled with the evil in the will, and the holy thus not profaned.
Moreover, it is incumbent on everyone to learn truths from the Word or
from preaching, to lay them up in the memory and to think about them. For
by truths held in the memory and entering into the thought, the
understanding is to teach the will, that is, the man, what he should do.
This is therefore the chief means of reformation. Truths that are only in
the understanding and thence in the memory are not in man but outside
him.
[8] Man's memory may be compared to the ruminatory stomach of certain
animals in which they put their food; as long as it is there, it is not
in but outside their body; as they draw it thence and consume it, it
becomes part of their life, and their body is nourished. The food in
man's memory is not material but spiritual, namely truths, rightly
knowledges; so far as he takes them thence by thinking, which is like
ruminating, his spiritual mind is nourished. It is the will's love that
has the desire and the appetite, so to speak, and that causes them to be
taken thence and to be nourishing. If that love is evil, it desires or
has an appetite for what is unclean, but if good, for what is clean, and
sets aside, rejects and casts out what is unsuitable; this is done in
various ways.
[9] 5. _But the Lord in His divine providence takes the greatest care
that truths are not received from the understanding by the will sooner or
more largely than man as of himself removes evil in his external man._
For what is from the will enters man, is appropriated to him, and becomes
part of his life, and in that life, which is man's from the will, evil
and good cannot exist together, for so he would perish. The two may,
however, be in the understanding, where they are called falsities of evil
and truths of good, and without being mingled; else man could not behold
evil from good or know good from evil; but there they are distinguishable
and separated like the inner and outer sections of a house. When a wicked
man thinks and speaks what is good, he is thinking and speaking
externally to himself, but inwardly when he thinks and speaks what is
evil; his speech, therefore, when he speaks what is good, comes off a
wall, as it were. It can be likened to fruit fair outside but wormy and
decayed inside, or to the shell, especially, of a serpent's egg.
[10] 6. _Should the will welcome truths sooner or in larger measure, it
would adulterate good and the understanding would falsify truth by
mingling them with evils and falsities._ When the will is in evil, it
adulterates good in the understanding, and good adulterated in the
understanding is evil in the will, for it confirms that evil is good and
good is evil. So evil deals with all good, which is its opposite. Evil
also falsifies truth, for truth of good is the opposite of the falsity of
evil; this is done in the understanding by the will, and not by the
understanding alone. Adulterations of good are depicted in the Word by
adulteries and falsifications of truth by whoredoms. These adulterations
and falsifications are effected by reasonings from the natural man which
is in evil, and also by confirmations of appearances in the sense of the
letter of the Word.
[11] The love of self, the head of all evils, surpasses other loves in
the ability to adulterate goods and falsify truths, and it does this by
misuse of the rationality which every man, wicked as well as good, enjoys
from the Lord. By confirmations it can in fact make evil look exactly
like good and falsity like truth. What can it not do when it can prove by
a thousand arguments that nature created itself and then created human
beings, animals and plants of every kind, and also prove that by influx
from within itself nature causes men to live, to think analytically and
to understand wisely? Self-love excels in ability to prove whatever it
desires because a certain glamour of varicolored light overlays it. This
glamour is the vainglory of that love in being wise and thus also of
being eminent and dominant.
[12] And yet, when self-love has proved such things, it becomes so blind
that it sees man only as a beast, and that man and beast both think, and
if a beast could also speak, conceives it would be man in another form.
If it were induced by some manner of persuasion to believe that something
of the human being survives death, it then is so blind as to believe that
the beast also survives; and that the something which lives after death
is only a subtle exhalation of life, like a vapor, constantly falling
back to its corpse, or is something vital without sight, hearing or
speech, and so is blind, deaf and dumb, soaring about and cogitating.
Self-love entertains many other insanities with which nature, in itself
dead, inspires its fantasy. Such is the effect of self-love, which
regarded in itself is love of the proprium. Man's proprium, in respect of
its affections which are all natural, is not unlike the life of a beast,
and in respect of its perceptions, inasmuch as they spring from these
affections, is not unlike a bird of night. One who constantly immerses
his thoughts in his proprium, therefore, cannot be raised out of natural
light into spiritual light and see anything of God, heaven or eternal
life. Since the love of the proprium is of this nature and yet excels in
the ability to confirm whatever it pleases, it has a similar ability to
adulterate the goods of the Word and falsify its truths, even while it is
constrained by some necessity to confess them.
[13] 7. _The Lord therefore does not admit man inwardly into truths of
wisdom and goods of love except as man can be kept in them to the close
of life._ The Lord does this lest man fall into that most serious kind of
profanation of which we have treated in this chapter. In view of that
peril the Lord also tolerates evils of life and many heresies in worship,
the tolerance of which will be the subject of the following chapter.
XIII. LAWS ON PERMISSION ARE ALSO LAWS OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE
234. There are no laws of permission per se or apart from the laws of
divine providence; rather they are the same. Hence to say that God
permits something does not mean that He wills it, but that He cannot
avert it in view of the end, which is salvation. Whatever is done for the
sake of that end is in accord with the laws of divine providence. For
divine providence, as was said, constantly travels in a different
direction from that of man's will and against his will, always intent on
its objective. At each moment of its activity or at each step in its
progress, as it perceives man straying from that end, it directs, turns
and disposes him according to its laws, leading him away from evil and to
good. It will be seen in what follows that this cannot be done without
the tolerance of evil. Furthermore, nothing can be permitted for no
cause, and the cause can only be in some law of divine providence,
explaining why it is permitted.
235. One who does not acknowledge divine providence at all does not
acknowledge God at heart, but nature instead of God, and human prudence
instead of divine providence. This does not appear to be so because man
can think and speak in two ways. He can think and speak in one way from
his inner self and in another from his outer self. This capability is
like a hinge that lets a door swing either way, in one direction as one
enters, in the other as one leaves; or like a sail which can take a ship
one way or the other as the skipper spreads it. Those who have confirmed
themselves in favor of human prudence to the denial of divine providence
see nothing else as long as they are in this way of thinking, no matter
what they see, hear or read, nor can they, for they accept nothing from
heaven but only from themselves. As they draw their conclusions from
appearances and fallacies alone and see nothing else, they can swear that
prudence is all. If they also recognize nature only, they become enraged
at defenders of divine providence, except that they think when these are
priests they are simply pursuing their teaching and office.
236. We will enumerate now some things that are tolerated and yet are in
accord with laws of divine providence, by which, however, the merely
natural man confirms himself in favor of nature and against God and in
favor of human prudence and against divine providence. For instance he
reads in the Word that:
1. Adam, wisest of men, and his wife allowed themselves to be led astray
by the serpent, and God did not avert this in His divine providence.
2. Their first son, Cain, killed his brother Abel, and God did not speak
to him and dissuade him but only afterwards cursed him.
3. The Israelites worshiped a golden calf in the wilderness and
acknowledged it as the god that had brought them out of Egypt, yet
Jehovah saw this from Mt. Sinai near by and did not warn against it.
4. David numbered the people and as a consequence a pestilence befell
them in which so many thousands of them perished; God sent the prophet
Gad to him not before but after the deed and denounced punishment.
5. Solomon was allowed to establish idolatrous worship.
6. After him many kings were allowed to profane the temple and the sacred
things of the church.
7. And finally that nation was permitted to crucify the Lord.
One who hails nature and human prudence sees nothing but what contradicts
divine providence in these and many other passages of the Word. He can
use them as arguments in denial of providence, if not in his outward
thought nearest to speech, still in his inner thought, remote from it.
237. Every worshiper of self and nature confirms himself against divine
providence:
1. When he sees such numbers of wicked in the world and so many of their
impieties and how some glory in them, and sees the men go unpunished by
God.
2. He confirms himself the more against divine providence when he sees
plots, schemes and frauds succeed even against the devout, just and
sincere, and injustice triumph over justice in the courts and in
business.
3. He confirms himself especially on seeing the impious advanced to
honors and becoming leaders in the state or in the church, abounding,
too, in riches and living in luxury and magnificence, and on the other
hand sees worshipers of God despised and poor.
4. He also confirms himself against divine providence when he reflects
that wars are permitted and the slaughter of so many in them and the
looting of so many cities, nations and families.
5. Furthermore, he reflects that victories are on the side of prudence
and not always on the side of justice, and that it is immaterial whether
a commander is upright or not.
Besides many other things of the kind, all of which are permissions
according to laws of divine providence.
238. The same natural man confirms himself against divine providence when
he observes how religion is circumstanced in various nations.